Steep tears gaming to the bare essentials. It takes a powerhouse of a video game engine, and surrounds it with beautiful graphics, 4 play styles and forced-multiplayer. By doing this it creates an experience in which the player is allowed to explore and enjoy the world. Every slope you find begs you to race down it. Every high peak gives you the urge to jump. Every imposibally fast line calls you to master it.
Admittedly, I thought forced multiplayer was annoying at first, as it caused me to have to wait while I connected to the server. But when I run into a group of three skiers climbing the same mountain as me with similar intentions of riding the same line, I couldn't help but be caught up in the excitement of meeting new people and racing them. That five minute race lead to a three hour session enjoying the company of fellow mountaineers as we attempted to master lines and have the best race.
But multiplayer isn't the only selling point of Steep. It's best component, in my opinion, is the fact that it rewards you simply for playing the game. Rather than pigeonhole you into a certain play style in order to level up, it rewards everything you do, from racing fast, to doing tricks, to wiping out, to exploring. Everything you can do in the game is rewarded by the game.
By no means is this game perfect, personally I found paragliding boring and slow. Sure it beat walking, but I was happy to ride a snowboard or ski through parts of a trip, and walk when I had to go up hill, rather than paragliding even though I knew the trip would take longer. That's how boring I found paragliding to be.
Wingsuit jumping is not as boring as paragliding, but it's excitement does not match the thrill of skiing or snowboarding. That's just my opinion and is probably caused by the hundreds of hours I spent wingsuit gliding in the Just Cause 2 and 3 games.
The price is a little daunting, and if you're buying this game expecting a good story you'll be sorely disappointing. But for 80 bucks, the game has great replay ability and is very rewarding. I'd recommend it to anyone.